I’ve done it. Not once, but twice, I’ve made £5 of shopping last seven days, eaten three times a day, for the annual Live Below The Line challenge. I’ve had some delicious surprises, like a sad wrinkly peach chopped up and steeped in boiling water for 15 minutes makes a delicious tea, and the best surprise of the week was […]
At the end of today, surveying the £5 food shop I did last Sunday, I have left: Bread, 4 slices. Lemon curd, one third of the jar. Cornflakes, 250g. Unsweetened soya drink: 200ml. Long grain white rice: 200g. Chopped tomatoes: 300g. Kidney beans: 200g – already made into kidney bean burgers on Tuesday, and frozen in patties. Frozen mixed vegetables: 300g. Spaghetti: 400g Onion: – NONE! Finally used the blighter! Broccoli, carrot, courgette and green beans: 120g – now eight days out of date. Mixed herbs: most of the jar. I could eke this out for another three days – but I need protein, fruit and whole grains. A week is more than long enough to demonstrate what nutritional deficiency there is in such a cheap food budget. Reading friends reported experiences during the challenge, who survived on 11p noodles and cheap crackers, I know I’ve done well to work in carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, tomato, courgette, peppers, bean sprouts and onions this week. Save two days when I managed to forget my lunch at work, I ate four times a day, usually toast for breakfast, cornflakes as a snack, rice and vegetables for lunch, and rice and vegetables for dinner. I averaged around 1000 calories a day – 600 below the recommended minimum daily amount for a woman of my age, height and activity level. I managed to consume around 30g of protein a day – less than half […]
Jack Monroe. Twitter: @MsJackMonroe
The Ilonqua Daily, 2 May: http://paper.li/ilonqua Ms Jack Monroe. Twitter: @MsJackMonroe
Sad to use up the last of the three-day-out-of-date peppers tonight, that were reduced to 30p on Sunday afternoon. Mixed with some chopped tomatoes and lemon curd, and folded through 75g of plain boiled rice, my 26p dinner is as good as any Chinese takeaway I’ve ever eaten. But that’s the funny thing about being hungry – everything suddenly tastes […]
From Google News, 1 May 2013. By Alice Ritchie, Agent France-Presse.
So, it’s the end of day two, of my Live Below The Line challenge. For those just catching up, I, along with 5,000 people in the UK, am living on £5 for five days to raise money for charity. My chosen charity is Oxfam UK, as I am involved with their Enough Food If campaign, tackling four major causes of […]
At the end of my first day of this years Live Below The Line challenge, I’ve had three meals and two snacks, which is better than I thought I would do. A seasoned frugal eater, even I have struggled today with my refusal to use my store cupboard ingredients and instead only use the £5 that I spent on Sunday for the challenge. 7am Breakfast: two slices of white bread, toasted, with lemon curd (2 slices white bread with approx 20g lemon curd). 6 pence. 10am snack: lemon curd sandwich (2 slices white bread with approx 20g lemon curd). 6 pence. 1130am snack: 20g dry cornflakes. 2 pence. 1pm lunch: 30g cornflakes with 150ml unsweetened soya drink. 11 pence. 6pm dinner: 100g plain boiled rice, 150g mixed peppers and stir fry veg, 200g chopped tomatoes and 20g lemon curd. 36 pence. TOTAL SPEND: 61 PENCE Total food left for the next four days: Bread: 18 slices Lemon curd: approx 350g Cornflakes: 450g Unsweetened soya drink: 850ml Plain white rice: 900g Mixed peppers: 150g Chopped tomatoes: 600g Kidney beans: 400g Mixed vegetables (carrot, broccoli, sweetcorn): 1kg Spaghetti: 500g 1 onion Broccoli, Courgette, carrot and green beans: 240g Mixed herbs: 13g I attended a meeting tonight about living below the line and addressing poverty in Southend – most of the attendees were already participating in the challenge. I have challenged myself to carry on beyond the five days if there is anything […]
Sort-of sweet and sour veg, 36p This was a stroke of what I like to call genius, when I picked up the mixed peppers and the lemon curd, and wondered whether lemon curd and tomatoes would make a sweet and sour sauce. The short answer – yes! So here’s my answer to a Chinese takeaway, for 36 pence. Ingredients: 150g […]
Sitting at my desk with a tired head, although the carb-slump is probably not helped by an extraordinarily busy weekend, I thought I would check my Living Below The Line fundraising page for some inspiration and a reminder as to why I’m taking part in the challenge. So far, by Monday lunchtime and just as I polish off my bowl […]
Well, it’s only half eleven and I’m already glad I had the foresight to pack some snacks for the day. After breakfast of lemon curd on toast this morning, with a glass of water, I packed two separate 20g portions of corn flakes to graze on, and a lemon curd sandwich. Normally a big protein eater, and off the back […]
My first meal for this year’s Live Below The Line challenge…. Two slices of toast with lemon curd, and a glass of water. Cost: 6 pence Calories: 288 I will also be adding my detailed nutrition calculations for the day, adding to them as each meal is consumed. The calories, fat, protein etc in the ‘left’ column are worked out […]
To see part one of Saturday morning’s BBC Breakfast interview with Louise Minchin and Charlie Stayt, click the link below: VIDEO: Jack Monroe on BBC Breakfast, 27 April 2013 Jack Monroe. Twitter: @MsJackMonroe
After a quick whizz to my local supermarket with my remaining 60p, I found the following two items in the bottom of the reduced chiller, bringing my total spend for the Live Below The Line challenge to £5.00, for the next five days. Plus my earlier shop at £4.40: Total food for the next five days: 300g mixed pepper stir […]
I’ve just done my Monday to Friday shop for this weeks Live Below The Line challenge. I live and eat on a very small budget already, and several of my friends have asked me what would be so ‘challenging’ about taking part in Live Below The Line for me. Well, most of my recipes are built around a 1.25kg vegetable […]
There’s a certain poignant, sadly ironic element as I stamp on a cardboard box in a car park behind the YMCA building in Southend tonight. (For those not in the know, I’m part of the YMCA Sleep Easy event, sleeping rough for a night to raise money for youth homelessness.) Six months ago, through a roller coaster of jobs gained […]
To donate, click here: http://www.justgiving.com/jackmonroesleepeasy This Saturday night, Southend YMCA are challenging people to ‘sleep rough’ to raise sponsorship money, and awareness of youth homelessness and the issues that young people face when forced to sleep on the streets. The ‘sleep out’ is being held outdoors on Saturday 2nd March, overnight in a car park in central Southend. It costs […]
